Ars Magica, Doomed From The Start

Our last session started off with the group reminding me that they had decided to tie Fisherman Bob’s old boat up and sent for the shipwright to come look at it, the group then continued on their way east to finish searching the beaches of the island.

They next arrived at a curious little inlet on the island, where the water from the sea had poured into a clam little bay, the water here was so calm that it had actually become more like tropical water instead of the icy cold waves that covered most of the rest of the beach. In the small place they found near the end of it a sinkhole about a hundred feet in diameter. Inside it went down until the light could no longer reach it and perched on the side 50 feet down was half a ship. The entire group was quite curious about it and talked amongst themselves about various ways to bring it up or restrain it so someone could go climb around in it, but in the end no one seemed to have any sure fire way that would hold the ship without causing it’s apparently loose hold on the side of the sinkhole to slip, and plunge into who knows what. Peter von Buren cast some magic that let him see fine in the water & be able to breath it, then hoped right in. He found it too far down to dive with his wimpy body & unskilled athleticism, so instead climbed down the rocky outcrops of the wall until he was down by the ship. He saw that it was indeed hanging on by apparently nothing, the large hole where the ship was split in 2 pressed completely against the wall. He could see threw various doors on the deck that there was still what appeared to be crates of something. The cabins quarters on the top of the ship had a open door, but even with the light spell that was cast on him (i forgot by who) he couldn’t really see inside, and thought twice about risking using the ship as a guide. So Aku finally went back up and told everyone what he saw, they all agreed to come back at some other time when they would use lots of rope, grogs & maybe magic to secure the ship & explore or even bring it back up.

Before they got back to the covenant they found one more interesting object on the beach, a dinner plate sized seed of some kind. None of them were sure what it is, it looked sort of natural, in that it was all made of one type of material, like a seed or bark. It had long fibrous tendrils that all fell in one direction on it and the thing was covered in barnacles, one side of it was perfectly smooth (the side opposite of the one with the tendrils). One of the grogs for some reason touched the “seed” and he suddenly turned into a puddle of water that quickly washed away into the sand…quite shocked no one knew what to do till John as his fox self picked it up in his mouth and trotted back to camp.

Once back in camp Ai Alin questioned everyone about what happened, & john hid the seed in his room…however as he was going to hide it everyone noticed he looked…odd. The Fox was slightly blue and looked a bit see threw, one of the mages even touched him and he felt squishy. John growled at them and hid the seed for a while until eventually after Ai Alin constantly asking him to bring it out, he did. They looked at the seed and were considering what to do with it, someone suggested putting it in with Cybnarl, when another of the grogs went over and touched it when Arathos de Gascony sarcastically dared him to. The Grog, like the other one, turned into a pool of water. The party cast a few detection spells on the seed, finding out that it had no metal on it and apparently wasn’t magical.

This is about when we ended our session because i blew up and like a jerk yelled at everyone because of my own worries & stress. Sorry about that once again.

Sorry for the late update, blame diablo 3! If you get the 2 of 151 joke…congratulations!

Our last session started off with clarifying who made what place to rest and who was sleeping where. We then proceeded to a middle of the night encounter when a small Pseudo Dragon attacked John in his sleep. There was a bit of commotion as John threw the thing off and Pyrus Greed came running out, as well as everyone else, to see what was going on. It seemed that Pyrus somehow knew the little creature and showed a great deal of interest in it, getting it to eventually with some persuading come over to him. Unfortunately that persuading involved letting the thing chew on his finger till it nearly severed a tendon, and while the creature did calm down after chewing off a bit chunk of Pyrus’s thumb it disappeared in the middle of everyone’s view. That being done Pyrus explained that he would appreciate if everyone was tolerant and nice to the creature, since he wanted to investigate it further when he got the chance. Everyone went back to sleep and the rest of the night was uneventful.

Most of the mages were woken up by the smell of breakfast from the grogs cooking, and everyone took to their meals quiet fiercely, though still half asleep and somewhat secluded from each other in conversation. Eventually everyone started talking together about what they should do today, and after a small conversation with the trent Cybnarl, in witch he as usual insulted them and screamed bloody murder…though this time made special by Pyrus having no clue what was going on, they all decided that it would be best if they started investigating the island. There was a lot of discussion about how they should go about exploring but none of it ended up being very decisive, so Pyrus simply took half the grogs & left, all the magi except for Draky Darkstar following him.

Drakys private exploration was for the hopes of finding a more “normal” forest then the rest of the palm tree type surrounding the covenant and most of the island. He was somewhat successful, finding a heavy jungle type forest north east of the covenant around the south western side of one of the 2 hills on the island.

The group headed north, passing threw the open forests with their tall wide canopy’s of great big fronds, with the heavy undergrowth & distinct lack of fauna. John as usual was flying above the rest in sparrow form. They passed several groups of birds visiting the island and eventually came to the northern end of the forest, the shore roughly 1/2 a mile away. As they crossed the sandy ground they noticed edged & out of place looking rocks breaking up threw the sand. The rocks never rose very high and they were spread out several hundred feet, covered with the sand in parts. The stone was not uniform, but few of them rose much higher then a foot out of the ground, and John said that from the sky the rock & sand “formations” seemed to be limited to a circular patch several hundred feet in diameter. The group investigated the rocks for a bit, realizing that they didn’t emanate with the same heat as the rest of the island. One of the mages was quite sure that it wasn’t formed by any natural phenomenon he knew of, another mage was pretty sure it had some degree of supernatural meaning to it, but no one could figure out anything more.

Marking the spot of the sand covered odd stone ground the group headed on the coast counter clockwise around the island. Of note on the beach was the amount of debree that was all over the place, some fresh, some not & some extremely old. There were bits of things from the port, trash and the like, but there was also parts of wreckage & all sorts of other pieces of worked wood & metal that couldn’t be placed. It wasn’t that the beach was covered with the stuff, but there was far more of it then is normal, even for a island right near a port. With the rise & lowering of tides who knows what sort of wrecks could be hidden inland or just out of view underneath the waves. Near the southern end of the island the group found a small wooden boat, very similar to the one they transported themselves onto the island with…just the same actually, except for this one seemed older, had a small crack in the bottom, was waterlogged & covered in barnacles. The wood seemed “fresh” from the ocean, seemingly having been trapped under the waves for quite some time. They magi all decided quite correctly that this must be Fisherman Bob’s old boat.

And with that we ended the session a bit early. Some people were distracted & i was busy dealing with a player in private. Pyrus decided that he was going to drop out of the game and i will be moving his character to a NPC.

Because Pyrus Greed wasn’t with the party at the start of the session we had a small simultaneous session in ims during the game, i will post a summery of that after the main groups summery.

In our third session we started with the party wakeing up on the beach of the oddly tropical island their covenant was to be established on. They had last left off sleeping there during the evening, having just gotten everything off the wagons & on the boat over to the island. They spent a bit of time deciding what to do next & fairly quickly agreed that they should go to the center of the island and find the location where the covenant would best be built, basically where the aura was the strongest & the land lined up the best. They knew they would have to use a special path to get to the location as it was hidden magically somewhat, check the Covenant for specifics.

Arathos de Gascony summoned some unseen porters to help them head off, and the grogs also helped, while John dashed forward as a fox to check out everything ahead of the group. The shape shifting mage found the way, testing the entrance technique & also had a few short conversations with the local fauna, asking simple questions, finding out a few different things as follows. Most of the creatures on the island were not indigenous & simply stopped by briefly. There were local wildlife though in the form of the monstrous black crows that John had seen earlier, all the wildlife avoided them as they were very violent and prone to killing anything they caught. The island possesses fruit on many of it’s trees, as well as the trees themselves, that the animals have never seen anywhere else before. Finally many of the creatures roughly mentioned an area inside the island witch is mysterious and few have ever gone to. John then rushed back to meet the others on their way.

The Magi & their grogs made the way to the clearing, physically able to feel the barrier protecting it as a thin film of spider webbing on their skin. Inside the clearing itself a humming sound seemed to resonate in the back of everyone’s mind, as if the ground itself was vibrating in a low frequency. The clearing is roughly 250 feet by 250 feet, surrounded by the thin top heavy trees of the island. 3 foot tall grass with the occasional shrubbery grows all over the field & it is quite flat, no boulders or dips or anything. Like the rest of the island however digging a few feet down will cause water to seep into the dirt making building a bit difficult.

Inside the clearing everyone started talking about what they should do first. For quite a while the conversation was centered around the various ways they could make a large cabin. Some of the mages wondered if they could just summon planks of wood, Arathos de Gascony thought maybe just summon walls of stone, though his ability to move and shape stone would be limited due to the lack of stone on the island. They mostly considered magical options, and talked about the limits of such (mostly in it’s short duration, usualy moon at best). Eventually they ordered their grogs to start cutting down trees and Vobis started trying to turn the trees into lumber & planks, succeeding moderately.

Aroun this time John got the idea that shrinking a portion of the trees would help the grogs cut them down quicker…and so he went about doing it. His very first attempt had…unexpected consequences. The entire tree shrunk instead of just a portion of it, and as it got smaller and smaller its branches turned to hands and its roots lifted out of the ground turning to feet. Once it reached only 2 feet tall a creature known as Cybnarl was looking at them. He was a trent, and a pissed off creature. It instantly started accusing them of being destroyers, enemies of nature, and then escilated it to calling them crazed giants. Everyone around the little thing was quite perplexed by it, and some of them found it quite entertaining, even as Cybnarl hurled clods of dirt at them. The magi talked to each other about what they should do with him & eventually John decided they could use one of the crates from the gargoyles that Arathos brought & keep the creature in it. By this time Cybnarl had managed to find a rock in all the small handfuls of dirt it was pulling up, and screamed out a victory cry before hurling it at john. However all this time Arathos had spent sneaking up behind the trent, and slapped a cloth bag over him. The thing screamed bloody murder, accusing them of blinding & binding him with dark magic, and then a bit later was placed inside the crate witch john layered with dirt, he seemed to calm down & be content in there, though he did insult aku as being a smelly woman once.

The little issue with Cybnarl seemed to kick everyone into a more direct method of making housing & each began making their own little places. Peter von Buren made a tent, John used the other gargoyle crate as a bed while in fox form, Al Ain made a hammock, Arathos de Gascony made a stone pyramid that sunk 2 feet into the ground but stopped after that…leaving a 4 foot tall door and then made a air hole in the top of it just in case he needed to escape the slowly sinking death trap & finally Vobis set up a pavilion.

Shortly after setting everything up is when the grogs & unseen porters finished bringing all the items, as well as apparently another magi. Coming into the clearing with a wagon and horse & 3 new grogs, Pyrus Greed introduced himself & was welcomed quite nicely by everyone except for Al Ain who seemed to imply that mages from Flambeau were destructive & untrustworthy. Pyrus mentioned the grogs that were still at the fisherman’s place & none of the mages seemed to really care about that.

That is where the session ended, we ran a bit late but it was fun & worth it.

Pyrus Private Session Summery

This “session” was simply what he & i were doing while the groups session was working towards his entrance.

Pyrus had recently reached the cliffs overlooking the sea, with the covenants island out in the distance. Noticing a lot of recent tracks he headed towards the fisherman’s house & met the grogs there. He spent a bit of time trying to figure out a way to get him & his belongings over to the island but eventually decided that the magic it required was unlikely to succeed and possibly beyond his power. In a very friendly manner he tried to get the grogs watching the horses & wagons to come to the island with him but they were very insistent at staying there, despite having no real clue as to when their masters would send for them…

So Pyrus with his wagon and 3 grogs headed to Port Cana, but the mage himself stayed outside while the mortals went in and secured a route to the island. It ended up costing Pyrus quite a bit of coin, so much that he considered just risking building a raft again, but after figuring out that he would need to walk back to the fisherman’s before he did so he just coughed up the money for a ferry. It had taken the grogs a while to find someone who was willing to bring someone to the island, a place that apparently around here is considered enchanted & extremely dangerous.

The captain of the ship was…polite but not particularly helpful. Pyrus asked him about Leviathan but the man flat out refused to talk about anything related to that, especially while going to the island he supposedly laird around. Pyrus also asked if the man would be interested in a more permanent contact, ferrying people to and from the island as well as unique goods that are on the island. The man was quite insistent that he wasn’t interested & said he had no clue about anyone in town who would be. He’s a captain, not a diplomat or merchant were his exact words.

The 20 mile boat ride went smoothy & despite how obvious it should have been the captain was very surprised when Pyrus mentioned he would be living on the island. The mage then got off and talked to the other magi’s grogs on the beach, having caught them as they were leaving inland with the very last load. He then sent the captain away who was quite happy to take his sizable pay & go back to Port Cana.

Because many of the players could not make our second session it ended up being focused on Pyrus & his grogs on their way to the Covenant. The grogs themselves were played by the players of Peter von Buren & Vobis.

We started off on the road, Pyrus & his grogs still several days from the covenant. Traveling threw Germany, to the east, they were on a major trade road that would lead them straight to Port Cana…eventually. After a brief introduction explaining where Pyrus was coming from & where they would be passing threw, they noticed a group of people on the road heading towards them from a small town, the town itself still being a few hours away though visible.

The men coming towards them were obviously not normal people, as each road a horse and carried themselves in a stately manner…Pyrus told his grogs to let him do the talking and they met up with the men. There was a large knight wearing heavy armor who preceded the others, carefully scouted out the players wagon and stood between them and the other people on horseback. There was also a nobleman’s son of no particular note. The leader of the group was a investigator for the Holy Roman Empire by the name of Investigator Korneleous, to his side was a sinister looking cowled man referred to only as The Executioner who was apparently an official envoy of the church.

Greetings were formal and mostly involved Korneleous asking Pyrus why they were on the road, what they were doing, what they were transporting, weather they come threw here a lot & if they know of the smuggling troubles on the road. Pyrus was very polite, informed them of everything they asked & even ignored several threatening comments made by the Executioner. Korneleous reigned in the Executioner a few times, mostly when he overstepped the boundaries and flat out claimed that Pyrus and his grogs were smugglers. The investigator was interested in finding out who they were & what they were doing, and while he was extremely suspicious and thought it was quite likely they were the smugglers, he was not accusatory and assured Pryus that he would make sure that his rights were not trampled on…but also that he would be watching him, and would not relent on their duty. With that the 4 men on horses went back to the town, pushing their steeds quicker then the wagon could go.

Before the Executioner left however he circled around their wagon and with a loud smack placed a red bloody handed symbol on the side of it, high near the top where everyone could see, then he road off with the others. The group noticed what he had done and investigated it. The mark looked like it had been made with blood or some other thick red paint, and was in the shape of a hand. Cleaning it off they decided would be problematic, giving the investigators group a reason to think they were interfering with his work, and make the Cowled man even more suspicious. Instead Pyrus ordered the grogs to do an inventory check, and in doing so they found a small bag that had poisonus mushrooms in it. They knew they had to do something with them and the grog played by Vobis suggested replacing them with similar looking but non poisonous mushrooms. Pyrus then did so, making a small handful of them with magic and they continued to the town.

When they got to the small village it was early evening, the grogs bought rooms in the inn and Pyrus slipped inside, avoiding notice mostly, except for the innkeeper who simply made sure he had a key and knew where his room was. The night passed quietly but when he awoke Pyrus noticed his window had been opened, a bag of clothes had been gone threw, and his journal had been moved slightly, and the quill taken. He quickly went to the grogs who met him half way and stated that the wagon had been messed up, one of the wheels had been bit/sawed threw. Rushing down to the barn where it was kept, next to the inn, they found the wagon was pretty much fine…except for a large 1/2 foot wide piece that was simply missing in one of its back wheels. The party argued over what caused it, looking for clues, finding nothing except for the odd saw/tooth liked marks on the wheel.

One of the grogs left to go find a carpenter & see if they could fix the wheel or purchase a new one…and during this time Investigator Korneleous and the rest of his posse showed up. They had more questions about what Pyrus was doing here, thanked him for not trying to flee, but seemed very upset at the wheel. Korneleous felt that the wheel being broken was a feigned excuse to stay in town until their smuggled goods could be picked up, he stated so, and then asked if they could look threw the wagon. Pyrus agreed though asked them to be careful with stuff, the knight who was the one who actually sifted threw everything assured them that he would be very careful. It took nearly 30 minutes of him holding up each object, waiting for acknowledgment from the Executioner, before he found the little bag of mushrooms. At this some of the grogs feigned shock, but Pyrus didn’t really care. Taking the mushrooms the Executioner accused them of being poisonous and trafficking in poison, who knows to what end. Pyrus said that simply wasn’t the case, they are for eating and offered to show him. He then ate several & then at the cowled mans insistence gave more of them to his grogs. Still unhappy the man snatched the mushrooms away and stomped to a nearby cow, shoving several of the things into the creatures mouth as it hungrily ate them…but nothing happened.

Furious now the Executioner accused them of still being smugglers, but quickly shut up when Korneleous told him too. The Investigator thanked the party, said he apologized for the problems but that he was just doing his job. He still suggested that they try their best to get out of town before the evening, and he said he would try to get the carpenter, who ended up not being able to provide them a wheel until tomorrow, to hurry up.

And so ended the session…at least nearly.

Our very last scene is of Pyrus laying in bed, having a suspicion something would try to sneak into his room…so he feigned sleep, simply waiting, and lasted until around 5am before he finally fell asleep (now going to be horribly tired all day tomorrow and suffer from extra botch dice). Moments after he woke up screaming as a tiny winged lizard clamped it’s fanged mouth on his nose.

Our first session went quite smoothy and I was extremely surprised at just how many people showed up, not only everyone who said they would but one person who thought they might not! I also weeded out 2 others who stated interest in the game but showed no acceptable amount of initiative (no it’s not any of you :p).

The opening introduction went as follows. If you don’t want to read it again scroll past it to “Summery”, if you are new to the campaign don’t scroll past it.

Introduction

It is the first millennium, and mankind is once again…umm…filled with wizards?

Welcome to Ars Magica. In this game i hope for us to have fun & deal with situations & experiences that are not common in other RPGs. I’m hoping politics will play a heavy role in the game, both inside the Covenant between its members, the party itself, and between you mages and the rest of the world. As a mage of the Order of Hermes you are part of the strongest society of mages in the world, and yet only a marginal power compared to the church or most major countries. Your life is one of self exploration, determined by yourself, paid for by yourself, and you yourself are responsible for your actions.

This is a game where a great deal of the fun comes in designing spells, going about a goal that you personally set, weather that’s building a floating castle or furthering the Orders understanding of the fae. In between sessions will usually be fast time, where months pass and you decide how you spend that time…perhaps researching or perhaps looking in the world for some magical item you want to find. In Ars Magic the story is driven by you guys, by the players. Will i effect things? Of course, and occasionally i will bring in a story unrelated to the covenant members, but in general i will try to make it so that everything that happens happens for a reason that can be traced to one of you, if not to the locale you live in.

A few things I’d like to go over once again shortly just to make sure everyone understands this (if somehow it fell threw the cracks). The laws of the Order of Hermes are strict & it is VERY dangerous to bend them, deadly to break them, and even skirting them can get the orders ire. The Order views problems in its ranks very simply…if the Order doesn’t keep it’s mages in line then the Inquisition will keep the Order in line. That being said dealing with demons AT ALL (including developing techniques to attack them, learning about them to protect against them and such) is against the rules. Bringing attention to the Order from the church is also HIGHLY frowned upon. Causing unrest with mortals is also against the rules (doing this to the church will usually get you killed). The Order is very big on execution, mostly because banishment doesn’t quite work with the whole “anyone know knows Parma Magica joins or dies”

We will be starting roughly in the 1200s, in north western Belgium. In this version of history the Holy Roman Empire has expanded a bit faster and further then it actually did, and so the majority of Belgium is under it’s influence.

Any questions? If you need to now would be a good time to check the Obsidian Portal site in its wiki for Port Cana as well as the Character Arnoldus Villicus, the backer and original provider of the Covenant.

Summery

Our first session dealt mostly with getting everyone together, making sure people could run maptools & hamachi, having people pick a few token pictures & so on. We went through introductions from each character and then started off.

Our story began with the majority of the players in a large caravan numbering roughly 24 grogs and a few small wagons. They had each traveled form a different place and caught up together on the road, since they were aware of each other roughly from their agreement to “take” the covenant. They were informed about Arnoldus Villicus and his place in the creation of the Covenant, mostly that he owned the land, as well as his reputation & likely expectations of it. Though it once used to be Arnoldus’s the Covenant now officaly, legaly & in all other ways belongs to the players…though they are indebted to the powerful wizard.

Arriving at the cliffs overlooking the sea the players realized that they had no way set up yet to actually get over to the island. It being near evening the group for the most part decided against going to the port (witch would be a few hours trip away anyways) & Drake Darkstar noticed a small fisherman’s port within sight. Draky, Peter von Buren, John & Vobis went down while Arathos de Gascony & Ali stayed with the grogs further up the hills.

The Small fisherman’s port consisted of a roofed dock, a old dusty barn used for storage, another small building presumably used for storage & a small house. Peter knocked on the door & spoke to Fisherman Bob. The man was fairly nice, though glared at Vobis a few times (the only one in the group who didn’t have the gentle gift, except for john who was a sparrow at the time). He also yelled at Draky, who was wandering around scouting out the place. Though suspicious at first Bob eventually become a lot nicer & after some light arguing agreed to let the group use his boat, the magi providing him with its value in coin until they finished with it, at witch time they would return the boat, get their deposit back & pay a small fee.

After going up to the grogs & other 2 magi everyone headed to the small dock, seeing the fisherman with a pipe & chair ready to watch the on goings. Bob was surprised at the number of people & insisted that they not try to bring wagons or horses over, as it would sink his boat & he had already lost his backup boat. The group assured him they were not going to, having had no plans to in the first place, and the shipping began.

It took them the rest of the night to get everything over to the shore, each there & back trip requiring over a hour, as only 1/2 a wagon and 5 people could fit into the boat at once. During the first trip Arathos de Gascony decided to try and hasten the journey by creating wind in the sails & ended up throwing himself off the boat, nearly drowning due to his inability to swim, and was only saved because Vobis tied a rope around a grog and the grog leaping in. Once on the shore Arathos created wind again to help one of the trips but after that stoped. John, while a sparrow, was accosted by several unusually large black crows, but made himself a bit more beefy with magic and scared them off…though wondered where such nearly supernatural looking creatures had came from.

The last part of the session delt with after midnight, the grogs making an agreement with the fisherman to clean up his stables if they were allowed to let their horses & themselves rest in there, leaving the wagons simply outside.

Overall the session seemed quite successful & i am looking forward to our next game, i hope you all are too!

First Session Start Date

We will hold our first session Sunday 4/29 at 7pm eastern (that’s UTC-5). As long as at least 3 people show up we will continue with the session. This session will deal mostly with getting acquainted with the location of the Covenant, building the Covenant, and possibly getting to know some of the locals, as well as each other. If the game doesn’t happen Sunday we will attempt for Thursday at the same time during the day.

As you can see on Doodle HERE there are many days where everyone but 1 person can play, so we will probably be changing each day of the week that we can play to try and incorporate different people in, without forcing any specific person out. However it should be said that still several players have not actually signed up on doodle. Also Doodle isn’t taking into account daylight savings time i believe, so times maybe be off by an hour, ill be sure to double check with everyone individually about this.

Please look at the previous adventure log for more information about the Covenant, as well as rules on how many BP you personally get and how you can spend them.

New Setting Information

I finished 5 wiki entries for where you guys will be starting, i will be adding several more over the course of the next few days. If you have any personal input into the setting or the specifics of what i have already created, please leave it in the comments or contact me directly and we can talk about it :) Input from players is always welcome and i would love to add some of your own ideas to the world to tighten your investment.

Arnoldus Villicus Provider & backer of the Covenant, the reason you get your lovely home. The Frosty Glade A Faerie Regio located relatively close to Cana and your Covenant. Port Cana This large port town is the closet mortal settlement & a heavy trade spot for the locals & Holy Roman Empire. Leviathan A monster that supposedly lairs somewhere around Cana or the island. Daedis Preceded by a shaking of the earth, this monsters victims dissipear without a word.

Reminder!!! Please join up on this site and tell me your name so i can add you to the campaign. Also please make a doodle account as we will be using that for scheduling. The quicker people sign up for these things the sooner we will begin

Until we actually begin i will use this as a status update page so you guys can know what i’m going about working on.

Game Status

Number of Players Interested: 11

Number of Players Showing Initiative: around 6

Number of Completed Characters: 4

RPTools Post Still Active: No

Personally Finished PDF Rules: Almost, 85% or so

I am today working on reading over the covenant rules & trying to decide how we will go about doing this for the first time, i have already decided a few things that will be set.

Covenant

Season: Spring

Baseline: I am considering a complete start from scratch, meaning you would have something like a partial kit from your masters to start up a Covenant, some grogs & a location of power already picked out. This is suggested as great for new players, but does also mean it will take a bit of time before the covenant is fully up to date and everyone has their own quarters/lab.

Power Level: Low

Library & Lab Text: You will start with resources for a library and some lab text as usual, its just that you haven’t actually constructed a place to keep all of the books & papers right now.

Vis: Perhaps a small stock that you brought with you and maybe a weak source nearby

Specialists: Maybe a few, very limited as they have no real use until you are already established

Hooks: Unknown x 6, Minor Beholden, Minor Monster x 2, Minor Poverty,

Boons: Aura x 4, Hidden Resources x 2, Major Regio, Prestige Minor

Your covenant, though new, has a reputation because of the people backing you guys up. Your group is seen somewhat as a experiment and a lot of great things are expected of you, for only a very small price to the masters who helped you out. Perhaps the largest thing they did for you was find a location that was in a strong aura and protected by a powerful Regio

Player Input in Covenant Creation
Put in the comments any particular interest you have in the covenants creation, such as its location. As of right now all that’s for sure is that its in a magical place (witch can be nearly anywhere), not in a town, not on a major road, and the ocean is within a days travel.

Build Points will be done completely by the players, as i have just as little experience with them as the rest of you. Your group begins with 50 build points per player (so between 300 and 500 I’m hoping). Each player can use their points how they wish, going by the Covenant building rules on p71. It is important to note that the resources you chose are property of the convent, however the person who pays the points for them generally has first dibs as well, being the person who in game brought or allowed them to be acquired. Feel free to leave in the comments what you would like to do with yours and talk with other players about it if you wish to. Because of the Hidden Resources Boon of your Covenant you will receive further build points later on in the game, though usually any additions to the Covenant are not bought with build points but actually found & built yourselves after campaign start.

The following limits apply to each person separately spending their build points